


The Dragon and the Knight

by brightwrites



Category: Trolls (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a prompt on bubb's tumblr!, Both Branch and Poppy are badasses, Broppy - Freeform, Cuddles, Dragons, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Knights - Freeform, Serious Injuries, Slow Burn, Swearing, Tags May Change, not a whole lot but it's there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2018-12-10 06:28:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightwrites/pseuds/brightwrites
Summary: The villagers were terrified, recounting details of a beast who had dropped off two bodies in the middle of town. They had sent out someone to kill it, but Chef had not returned.Now, armed with only a sword and her own intelligence, Poppy must venture out into the forest to slay the monster that was terrorising her people.But, with some explanations, a storm and a begrudging host, she learns that first impressions aren't always that accurate.





	1. A Quest and a Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bubb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubb/gifts).



"So..." Poppy absentmindedly rubbed the sparkling metal of her favourite helmet, "I go out, find the creature, and then what?"  
  
King Peppy stroked his moustache and hairless chin, looking down from his throne with a thoughtful expression. "Well... you should probably... but..."   
  
"Yes?" Poppy pressed, twirling a strand of bright bubblegum hair around her finger with her free hand. She genuinely didn't want to kill the magnificent beast that the villagers had described.   
  
The elderly man sighed. "Look, Poppy, I understand you've always held a fascination with magical creatures, but this... this _pest_ has killed three people already! One of which was one of our fiercest knights!"   
  
"Actually, we don't know that she's dead," Poppy muttered, "Fiercest knight, more like cruelest..."   
  
King Peppy ran a hand through his greying hair, he didn't understand a word that she had just uttered due to the fact that his hearing had been failing over the years. The look on his face reminded Poppy of the time she tried to take on an entire lair of malicious vampires by herself. Looking ready to send her off to one of the strict colleges in the freezing north just so that she could mature a little.   
  
" _Poppy,_ " the king said sternly, "This thing could kill you. Dragons are powerful, destructive beasts to be put down, not admired or taken pity on."   
  
Poppy didn't back down, setting her beautifully crafted helmet on the carpet of the throne room, and putting both pale hands on her armored hips as she stood before the king of the Troll Village. "You said the same thing about the benevolent group of vampires passing through our village. The medicines they carried helped us through the winter!" Her violet eyes flashed with the defiance that reminded Peppy of himself when he was younger.   
  
King Peppy's amber eyes were full of a mixture of exasperation and tiredness. "This is a different case entirely, and you know that, Poppy. Those vampires came to us willingly and begged for shelter. They didn't attack anyone." He fiddled with the the crown in his hands. "The only reason I hesitated to ask you to kill it in the first place was because dragons can sometimes be-"   
  
"-Intelligent." The knight finished for him. Her eyes widened. "Oh, by the ancestors! That's it! I could try to speak to the dragon rationally!"   
  
"Poppy, no." King Peppy stresses, his voice stony. "You are to go out to the cave that the scouts have found, and kill the dragon. That is an order."   
  
The pinkette didn't want to admit defeat, but she couldn't outright refuse a direct order like that. She opened her mouth to try and argue, to make the king see it her way, but nothing more came to mind to retort. She sighed and picked up her glittering helmet. "I will leave at noon."   
  
The vaguest hint of a smile splayed across Peppy's lips. "Take care, Poppy." He murmured. "Kill the dragon before it kills you."   
  
She tied her long princess curls into a high ponytail, strands escaping and brushing across her freckled face. "Don't worry, Dad." She did her best to beam at him, but there was a hint of resignation in her tone. "I've killed rogue ogres and hydras before, a dragon can't be that hard." She promptly placed her amethyst-colored helmet on her head and strolled out of the throne room, letting out a long breath of air once the doors shut behind her.

* * *

"Are you sure it's a good idea to leave today?" Her best friend, Suki, asked, sending a worried glance at the shifting grey sky. "The scholars predict that a storm might be comin'." Poppy's crush, Creek, stood next to the orange-haired girl and nodded.  
  
Poppy smiled reassuringly at the two. "Remember when a necromancer tried to take over the village and disarmed me of my weapons? Well," She pulled out her silver sword, glimmering even with the absence of the sun. "A dragon can't be too difficult after that."   
  
"Still Poppy, we worry. You almost died when that hydra rampaged through the forest, remember?" Creek said, placing a hand on her shoulder, uncomfortably close to her neck, making the skin there tingle in a not-so-pleasant way.   
  
"I'll be _fine_ , guys." She insisted, hopping onto Fuzzbert's back, so named because of his rare, curly fur and long, flowing mane and tail. She didn't even know what his eyes looked like, because his white mane was always in his eyes. "Fuzzbert, onwards!" She exclaimed, kicking her armored feet gently into his dark brown sides.   
  
Perhaps she was being too sensitive... but Creek always seemed to doubt her ability. It was probably just him being over-protective, but she was a knight. She was trained for this kind of thing, she _knew_ she could do it. It stung, just a little bit, every time he brought up the hydra in an effort to stop her from going out on a quest.   
  
"We can do this, Fuzzbert." She whispered to him, despite the vicious wind blowing both her and Fuzzbert's hair around like mad.   
  
She admired the scenery of the different flora and fauna, though they probably looked even more beautiful when they weren't under the bleak, grey light that filtered through the clouds.   
  
She remember the directions that the scouts gave. Turn right at a huge, old oak tree, and over a dried-up stream. Follow the trail of white primroses and... she was there! A small cave opening at the foot of Bergen Mountain, so named because of the legends of the miserable creatures that used to live there.

She tied Fuzzbert to an old maple tree, and patted his head as he whinnyed, sensing the tense atmosphere. “Don't worry, boy. I'll go in there, show the dragon who's boss, and be back before nightfall. I'll be _fine_.” She repeated the last statement mostly to comfort herself. She hadn't taken on a beast like this since the hydra, and it made her nervous thinking about what a close call that had been. Thank the ancestors a forest fire had miraculously started.

Grabbing her lantern, she ventured into the dark cave. It was almost pitch black within a couple seconds of walking. But… she reached a dead end all too soon, as she realized as she skimmed her hands over the rough rock of the cave. Had the scouts been wrong?

The pinkette lit her lantern and let the warm amber glow cast over the dark walls. She inhaled sharply in surprise.

There were carvings, all over the wall in front of her. They weren't caveman drawings either; they were elaborate, elegantly carved by a clearly gifted hand. They depicted dragons throughout the ages: Burning down houses, flying amongst the birds and the clouds, mates sleeping together in nests. But she also noticed that while they were all beautiful, they had different styles, and some looked more ancient that others. Perhaps carved by different people?

But then she noticed a smaller carving on the bottom left of the wall. It was clearly the newest, with no hint of being washed out or worn away. It was also done by an unskilled hand, rougher, less detailed. It was of a young dragon, about the size of a horse, curled up beside an old woman.

Curiously, Poppy bent down and brushed her fingers across it… and it glowed silver! She backed away, scared, as she heard an ear-bursting rumbling sound. Then… the wall with the carvings split vertically in two, like a doorway!

Taking deep breaths to calm herself down, she watched as the gap between the two halves of the wall got larger. After about half a minute, it was big enough to slip through.

She didn't _want_ to walk into this death trap, but it was her duty to slay the dragon. Closing her eyes and rubbing a hand across her face, she picked up the still-lit lantern that she hadn't even realized she’d dropped in shock.

The knight didn't know what she was expecting when she walked into the dragon’s lair. Little to no light? Bones, possibly of humans, littered everywhere? She did know, however, that she was _not_ expecting what she saw.

It was like a small meadow inside a cave, in a strange way. It was _massive_ , and the ceiling was way above her, giving the illusion that she was outside, due to the huge hole in it allowing the weak light to illuminate the cavern. There were multicolored crystals all over the walls, causing small rainbows to also be flecked all over the walls. A small mountain stream must also have ran nearby, because there was a small waterfall on one wall, creating a tiny pond, which had another stream branching off and deeper into the mountain. There were holes in the wall, cubby holes, but they all looked about the right size for a human to curl up comfortably in, not a dragon. Some had blankets and cushions, others were bare. That was weird.

There was grass! And, in one corner, a… farm? Well, a little garden growing vegetables, from what she could see. But the thing that really caught her attention was the tree.

It was enormous, gnarled and very old-looked, though it did still have leaves. The branches seemed to be reaching up towards the sky. She walked towards it to investigate, but then something curious caught her eye.

It was… a boy. He had onyx black hair, and shining bronze skin. He was sitting at the base of the tree, leaning against it, fast asleep. He was wearing threadbare, ratty clothes and shoes so old that the soles were flopping off. His raven hair was a mess, cut short roughly and unevenly, possibly with a knife.

_What is he doing in a dragon’s den?_ Poppy wondered. She gently touched his shoulder, carefully shaking him awake.

“Hide the coco-!” He stopped his exclamation and blinked. “Wa-wait, what?” The boy peered up at her, looking bleary and confused. Obviously something registered wrong in his groggy mind, however, as he leapt away from her, almost tripping over on of the roots. She noticed his eyes were quite a nice shade of sky blue.

“Who-what are you doing here?” He asked, steadying himself against the old tree with one hand, while putting his palm out in front of him defensively with the other. She cocked her head to the side.

“Better question is, what are _you_ doing here?” She asked, narrowing her eyes skeptically. “This is a dragon’s lair, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Oh.” The boy said blankly, then her words seemed to register. “ _Oh._ ” He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, and glared at her. “You didn't answer my question.”

“ _You_ didn't answer _mine_.” She retorted, crossing her arms.

His lips twitched, as he crossed his arms as well. “Well, I asked first.”

She resisted a sigh, and conceded. “I came to slay the dragon, why else?”

She received a rather harsh scowl. “Why do people always think they can come here, all high and mighty, and do kill whatever they don't like?” The boy growled, tilting his chin up.

Poppy blinked like she'd been hit by a wall. There was a moment of silence. “What are you… talking about?” She then cleared her throat, realizing she'd stood around doing nothing for far too long. “And _where is the dragon?_ ”

The dark-haired boy in front of her bared his teeth in what was almost a smirk. “The thing is, I’ve got news for you, princess,” He taunted, as his form began to change in front of her. “I _am_ the dragon.”

* * *

Poppy had seen a lot of things in her life.

Vampires, ogres, goblins, elves, werewolves, sirens, even a hydra.

But seeing a relatively harmless-looking boy shapeshift into a fearsome beast?

That was new.

In only a couple of seconds, an enormous dragon stood tall in front of her. He had glittering, teal scales covering his head, neck, back, tail and legs. He had indigo quills that ran all the way from the top of his head to the tip of its powerful, writhing tail. His underbelly was the same colour. His face was also teal, with a pointed snout and wide eyes the same colour as they were in human form.

He rested on four legs for a moment, then stood on his hind legs as he let out an impressive roar, and stretched out his wings. They were the same colour as its scales, and so massive that they brushed opposite walls of the cavern.

He then fixed his huge eyes, with cat-like pupils, on the pinkette. She would admit it to a soul, ever, put in that moment… she was so scared she almost dropped her sword.

He reached a giant claw down, probably to swat her into another century, but then… hesitated. He stared at her for a second, before dropping back down onto all fours.

“Go,” He demanded in an almost booming voice. “Now.”

Despite her fear, she stood up straight and looked the dragon in the eye. “No. I have come here to slay you and I will, even if I have to die trying.”

The beast breathed out a huge rush of air, almost like a sigh, and pawed the grass. “Why do you have to make this difficult for yourself?”

“You're a danger to my village and my people. What kind of knight would I be if I let a danger run rampage?”

The blue dragon lowered his head, so that the two were eye level. “And why am I a danger, exactly?” He questioned. His breath wasn’t unpleasant, it actually smelt like mint.

“Because you’ve killed people!” The princess exclaimed, quickly growing tired of this discussion. “Tony the sheep farmer, Eva the divinator, and Chef the knight, to be precise.”

The creature’s grand tail wound and unwound itself around his hind legs in an almost anxious manner. “The sheep farmer? He came barging into my home insisting that I had stolen one of his precious sheep. He wouldn't leave me alone even when I told him he was wrong. He even tried attacking me with a small dagger. I had no choice. I even left his body in your village so that he could have a proper burial, and as a warning.”

That did make an uncomfortable amount of sense, as Poppy acknowledged. Tony did have a reputation for being quite short-tempered, especially on the subject of his prized sheep. “What about Eva? You have no excuse for killing her,”

A rumbling sound came from the beast’s throat, reminding her of when she would clear her throat nervously in awkward situations.

“I… could have been more patient.” The dragon lowered his head in… shame? “She came to the wall, but couldn't figure out how to get in. She pounded on the doorway every day, demanding I give her treasure. Of all the false stereotypes of dragons she had to believe.” He snorted, and red flames came out of his nostrils. “I lost my temper, and… she didn't really stand a chance.”

The pinkette’s eyes widened as she recalled Eva insisting that one day she would save up enough coin and move away from the small town and into one of the big cities, where she would have more interesting futures to predict.

“...Oh.” She fidgeted with her armor plates a little. “What about... Chef?” It was a weak argument, and she knew it.

“Do I really need to explain the concept of self defense to a knight?”

She pursed her lips. “Okay. What am I supposed to do now?” Her hands hadn't once hovered to her sword’s hilt during the conversation. Even now, the idea of killing this… he wasn't a beast. He was intelligent and sentient. He had a moral compass. He was, as she had seen, partially human. The idea of murdering him in cold blood went so against everything she believed that she almost shuddered.

The dragon lifted his head back up, but still peered down at her. “Well, that’d be obvious, wouldn't it?” His tail swished lazily. “You try to kill me. One of us dies. I kinda think that's how fighting to the death works.”

_Sarcasm._ So he had some personality.

She took her helmet off, exasperated. “I can't just kill you _now_. You did it all in self defense. You're pretty much innocent! I can't kill an innocent person!”

Snowflakes had started sprinkling from the hole in the ceiling, dusting across the dragon’s blue scales. The way he stood there, regal, glittering with snow and still, he looked almost too beautiful to be real. She had seen dragons before, but only in drawings, and they did the magnificent creatures absolutely _no_ justice. The sketches did nothing to capture the shifting iridescence of their scales, the piercing glow of their eyes, the power and spirit that seemed to radiate from their very being.

The blue-eyed dragon looked at her for a moment, before shifting back into a human. “You could lie, tell them that you killed me.”

Poppy blinked. It was disorientating to be staring up at a fearsome dragon speaking in a low rumble one minute, then the next be looking at an ordinary boy with a quiet voice. “What?”

The dark-haired boy sighed in annoyance, then repeated himself. “I said, tell whoever you're reporting to that you've slain me and move on with your life,” He crossed his arms, “As long as no one knows I'm here, no one will bother me and I won't have to kill anyone. It's a win-win.”

Her lips twisted a little bit in displeasure; she didn't like lying to people, especially her father. But if she had to do it to save someone’s life…

“Okay,” She trailed her fingers along the designs of her helmet. “I'll lie.”

The boy looked uncomfortable, as he unfolded his arms. The snow had gradually gotten heavier, and there was now thick clumps of snow fluttering from the sky. They fell into his messy black hair, and got caught in his dark eyelashes. His eyes reflected the snow around the two, giving them a silvery glimmer.

She realized she had been inspecting him, and took a step back awkwardly, putting her helmet back on her head.

He cleared his throat, finger fidgeting anxiously by his sides. “So, um, you can leave now.”

She nodded silently, heading back to where she had come from, and was greeted by a blank wall. She looked back at the brunet, confused.

“Put your hand on it,” He called, then turned around and started walking towards the small vegetable garden.

She followed his advice, and placed a pale hand on the dark rock. It immediately reacted to her touch, splitting in two again, just as it had before.

She cast one last look behind her, getting a glance of the blue-eyed boy digging into the soil with his bare hands, then walked out.

* * *

Poppy knew that there was something wrong the moment she heard the howling. The wind screeched like a mournful dog, the sound echoing and amplifying off the cave walls. She looked out of the cave mouth and immediately mumbled a curse word under her breath.

She couldn't even see anything; it was just a wall of whirling snowflakes, she could barely even see two feet out of the cave mouth.

She then remembered something that caused all the blood to drain from her face. “Fuzzbert!” She shrieked, wading out into the blizzard.

She heard a weak neigh from somewhere to her left, and practically dived in that direction. She caught a glimpse of his chocolate fur coat and finally found him.

The knight grabbed Fuzzbert's reigns and guided him back in the direction of the cave, while stroking his snout and whispering comforting words to him.

The wind was icy and the snow was blinding, but she made it back to the cave, despite not being able to see half a metre in front of her.

Sitting just inside the cave and staring out into the storm, she realized how screwed she was. This was clearly the storm Hiems, the annual blizzard that lasted approximately two weeks. It had come early this year, it usually didn't show up until December, and it was mid-November now.

“What are we gonna do now?” Poppy murmured to her equestrian friend. But she knew what she had to do. They couldn't remain out there without freezing to death. She just had to rely on the generosity of someone who had almost killed her a little while ago.

With shaking legs, she stumbled back over to the wall of carvings, with Fuzzbert following anxiously behind. The princess then remembered that she had left her lantern back in the cavern, so she had to navigate her way through the pitch darkness.

She carefully felt the wall in front of her, brushing her fingers across the different designs, before reaching down to the bottom left, and trailing her fingertips along until she could see a faint silver glow in the darkness and heard the deep rumbling.

Fuzzbert reared up, terrified of the sudden loud noise. She ran over to him. “No, no, it's okay, it's fine,” She whispered to him, effectively calming him down.

She waited impatiently for the opening to be large enough, teeth chattering. She had to wait longer this time, since Fuzzbert had to get through too. She waited a full minute, then the doorway was fully open, and she got a full view of the cavern once again. They stepped in quietly, and heard the wall crunching closed behind her

The bronze-skinned boy looked up in shock, from where he was reading a book at the base of the old tree. He then furrowed his brow, put his book down, and started striding over to them with an angry expression. She gulped, and her horse pawed the ground with his hoof, sensing the tension.

“What are you still doing here?!” hissed the boy. He glared at her with his sky blue orbs, awaiting an answer.

Poppy pursed her lips, nervous. “Th-the storm,” She croaked, gesturing to the snow rushing from the hole in the ceiling. “We can't go out in that.”

The brunet gnawed at his lip, the expression of anger melting into one of indecisiveness. “How long do you think it will go on for?” He asked finally, after too many beats of silence.

She fidgeted with the straps on Fuzzbert's saddle. “About two weeks,” She admitted.

He growled, tugging at his own dark hair. He then pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can stay… I suppose.” He grumbled quietly.

She grinned at him and clapped her hands in delight. “Thank you!” She squealed, ready to hug him. But the boy did _not_ look like he would appreciate that.

“So… I guess you could stay in one of those,” He said, pointing to one of the cubby holes that were closer to the ground.

She shuffled her feet slightly awkwardly, remembering the animal beside her. “Um, what about Fuzzbert?” She asked, and quickly elaborated, seeing the confused expression on the boy’s face. “My horse.”

He scratched the back of his head. “I suppose he could be tied up near the pond over there,” He said pointing to the waterfall and the pool of water beneath it.

Poppy shook her head. “He doesn't like being tied up,” She told him, stroking her horse’s mane.

The boy's lips twisted up in displeasure. “Are you sure it would be safe to just let him roam free?” He eyed the shaggy horse with distrustful eyes.

She smiled. “Of course! I'd trust Fuzzbert with my life,” She said affectionately.

The black-haired boy sighed. “Fine. But if he attacks me or something, you two are going right back out into the storm.” He crossed his arms.

“One last thing,” She said, not missing his groan of frustration. “My name's Poppy. You?”

“Branch,” He uttered curtly, before striding back through the snow, towards the gnarled tree and his book.

  
“Branch,” She whispered to herself, and grinned slightly. There was no way she was going to spend two weeks in a tense atmosphere. She was going to befriend him, somehow.


	2. A Crystal and a Snowball Fight

She woke up cold.

Poppy had grown accustomed to sleeping in uncomfortable conditions - it was practically guaranteed for knights planning ambushes or going on long journeys to slay a beast in some out-of-the-way lair.

But even when she had fallen asleep on guard duty and woken up with angry red marks on her skin from her armor, she had never woken up so achy and stiff.

Perhaps it was due to the awkward position she had been sleeping in, maybe it was because of the icy cold that seemed to be burrowing down into her very bones. Most likely a combination of both.

She groaned and resisted the urge to snuggle back down into the  _ many  _ blankets that she had taken from other cubby holes. But she knew that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, her body clock was used to getting up  _ way _ earlier than she would prefer.

She sat up, head almost brushing the top of the stone cubby hole, threw back the blankets with as much energy as she could muster. Almost immediately after, she accidentally tumbled two metres into the snow, forgetting the gap between the cubby hole and the ground.

Her fall had been cushioned by the several feet thick layer of snow that was still growing. There was still heavy snowflakes whirling from the hole in the ceiling. Poppy had no doubt that the entire cavern would full of snow before the blizzard was over.

Distantly, her mind fondly remembered how she used to love the snow, before she found out how cruel winter was, how it stopped crops from growing, how it could cause people's fingers to fall off, how the illnesses it brought could whisk away your loved ones…

Poppy quickly snapped out of it and looked around to see Fuzzbert snoring nearby, and the dragon shifter, Branch, placing an armful of sticks into a larger pile of them, near the entrance to the cave.

She was distracted, however, by the fact that her toes were  _ literally  _ turning purple, so she hastily dug through the snow, and found her boots. They weren't exactly the warmest or most comfortable shoes to be wearing first thing in the morning, given that they were made of metal, but they were a better option than going barefoot.

The knight, with limbs unusually heavy and tired, stumbled over to the raven-haired boy. He looked up, hearing her clumsy footsteps crunching through the packed snow.

“What are you doing?” She asked, eyeing the pile of sticks, almost as tall as her, curiously.

He was silent for a moment, and she wondered if he was ignoring her. “Collecting wood from outside,” Branch replied finally, inspecting the pile carefully.

“Wha- how did you do that?” She spluttered, “I could barely see my horse when he was three feet in front of me! How did you find individual  _ sticks _ ?”

He smirked at her. “It's fairly easy to go out and rip a tree apart,”

Her jaw snapped shut, but still she persisted. “How could you find your way  _ back _ ?”

He shrugged, and put his hands on his hips. “I know this forest like the back of my palm. I don't need to be able to see to make my way through it.”

She cocked her head to the side. “‘The back of my palm’?” She questioned.

He scowled at her, but there was a blush creeping up his neck. “What?” He demanded, fidgeting with the hem of his ratty t-shirt.

“Nothing,” She grinned at him, fighting back a giggle.

He glared harder, so she changed the subject quickly. “So, what are you planning on doing with all this wood, anyway?”

She thought that if he rolled his eyes any harder they might roll out of his head. “Oh, I don't know, I was planning on  _ eating  _ it.” He said, tone thick with sarcasm. “We’re going to make fires, obviously!”

“Okay, okay, sheesh,” She mumbled crossing her arms. They were covered in goosebumps, given the fact that she was only wearing the thin t-shirt and pants that she used for under armor.

“Y’know, think we might suffocate under all this snow before the storm's over,” She remarked, teeth chattering slightly.

The boy pursed his lips, glancing over at her. “I was thinking of maybe getting a huge piece of cloth and covering the hole with it,” He pointed up at the hole above them, letting in all the heavy snow and icy wind.

“Not a bad idea,” She smiled, tying up her bright pink hair, as it had apparently come loose during her restless sleep. “Where are we going to get the cloth, though?”

“That's the problem,” Branch admitted. “I was thinking of stitching some animal skins together, if we could get them. Problem is, I have no idea how to skin an animal  _ or  _ sew.”

She choked back the laugh that bubbled up her throat, she didn't even know what she found so funny. “I know a couple of protection spells, if you have the right power crystals, I could cast a barrier over the hole,” She offered.

He raised an eyebrow, “What do you think those are?” He asked, gesturing in the direction of some of the crystals jutting from the walls. “Those are some of the strongest power gems you can get. I would think that someone who understands magic would recognize one of  _ the most common magical items _ .”

She crossed her arms. “Okay, are we gonna do it then? Or are you just gonna stand there and mock me?”

He crossed his arms as well. “I don't know, both options seem pretty attractive to me,” He shot back, bright blue eyes boring into her own violet ones.

“Well,  _ I _ , for one, would rather not freeze to death, but maybe that's just me.”

He rolled his eyes, again, and uncrossed his arms. “Alright, alright, let's get back to work. You go see if you can dislodge one of the crystals before we get buried under all this snow,” Just during the exchange between the two, his shoulders and hair had been covered in a decent layer of snow.

Poppy nodded, and trudged, shivering, towards the neared cluster of crystals. They were a similar color to rubies, a bright, beautiful red. Each was about the size of a plum, and there were about seven or eight of them in the cluster.

She grabbed the nearest one, which was the deepest red color. Putting one foot on the stone wall for leverage, she yanked once, twice, and finally it came loose.

She inspected at the glittering gem in her palm. It looked like it was made of vibrant, red glass. But she could tell that it was definitely a power crystal, because the scarlet shine on her hand wasn't just the light filtering through the jewel, it was also because of the natural glow that power gems had.

“I've got a crystal!” She called over her shoulder. Branch lifted his head from where he was pushing snow off the mini farm with only his bare hands.

“Finally,” He said sharply, walking over, wiping the snow and soil off his hands, onto his old pants.

“It only took me, like, two minutes!” She exclaimed, doing her best to look outraged.

“That's two minutes too long, princess,” The brunet snarked back, putting his hands on his hips. “That's two minutes worth of snow building up on our only food supply.” He emphasised this by gesturing to the winter wonderland that was the vegetable garden.

She sighed, but decided that this wasn't the time to get into an argument. “So, uh, how are we gonna do this?” Poppy asked after a beat of awkward silence, glancing anxiously at the hole that was letting in flurries of snowflakes. It was  _ at least  _ twenty metres up. “I can't cast the spell all the way up there.”

“Well, I can't fly in this cave or I'll destroy everything in it,” He replied, squinting up through the curtain of snowflakes.

“So… we have a problem.” Poppy gnawed at her lip, deep in thought. There had to be some way around this. There was  _ always  _ a way.

“No duh, we have a problem,” Branch moved his gaze from the giant hole, and fixed it on the pinkette, his eyes hard. “The only other option is to cast the spell from the outside.”

She tried to smile, but the idea of going out to be at the mercy of Mother Nature daunted her. Her heart beat a little faster at the idea. “Will we get to it then?”

* * *

 

Poppy knew that if she was going to be spending two weeks with Branch, she would have to get used to him transforming. Still, watching his body grow, his features distort, and his copper skin change to blue scales made her feel vaguely nauseous.

Within a minute, where the sarcastic, dark-haired boy once stood, there was now a huge dragon, scales glittering with snow and practically glowing in the regal way that only dragons could.

The sky-eyed dragon sat down, then put his front legs on the ground too, lying down on his belly in a way not too different from the way a dog would. He tucked in his wings, and glared at her.

“Hurry up,” He barked, looking almost uncomfortable under her gaze.

She walked carefully over to him, and eyed the distance between his back and the ground. “So… you want me to climb onto your back?” She questioned, fidgeting with the jewel in her hand.

He growled impatiently. “Yes, Poppy! I'm not sure why else I would be in a position like this!” She flinched back slightly at his harsh tone, but did her best to ignore it.

She realized that she'd need both her hands for climbing, so, in a split-second decision she quickly shoved the gem into her mouth, grimacing slightly at the dust and grime that coated her tongue. She'd forgotten that she had just pulled the thing out of a rock wall.

Cautiously, she climbed her way up Branch’s side, pausing all too often to find a hand- or foot-hold. Not to mention that his scales were slippery from the snow, her fingers were clumsy with cold, and his wings, which were mainly just a stretch of tough skin, had almost nothing to grip at all. It was slow work.

Finally, shaking with adrenaline, she reached his indigo quills, and sat between two of them, gripping the one in front of her like the lifeline it was, knuckles white.

Branch stood up on four legs suddenly, and Poppy was sure she was about to have a heart attack. This felt nothing like riding a horse. She felt like a flea clinging desperately to a cat’s fur.

The blue dragon bent his hind legs for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever. She held her breath and closed her eyes.

Then he leapt with such  _ power  _ that the air felt as if it had been pummeled from her lungs. Her stomach completely left her body and her eyes snapped open, but she couldn't seem to close them again.

But that one, powerful jump hadn't gotten them all the way up through the hole. Branch flapped his massive wings once, and for a split second, she was weightless, until gravity forced her back onto the his back. They shot through the hole in the ceiling.

Poppy wasn't sure what she was expecting to see, but she was expecting  _ to  _ see. The moment they left the cavern, her mouth, nose and eyes were all immediately full of snow. She coughed and spat it out, while doing her best to keep the gem in her mouth from falling out as well, and wiped her eyes and nose. Even with the ability of sight, she couldn't see anything, due to the floods of snow that seemed to be spilling from the sky.

Branch landed on the mountainside, just beside the hole, and lay down again. Poppy got up, dizzy, and slid a little too fast into the snow. But hey, the snow was probably a metre and a half deep at that point, so it didn't hurt too much.

The dragon beside her then spread his wings, wide, effectively sheltering her and part of the hole from most of the snow.

Taking in a deep breath through her nose, she stumbled over to the edge of the hole, almost tipping head-first back in.

Poppy spat the jewel out into the palm of her hand, and quickly wiped the saliva on it off with the thin fabric of her t-shirt.

Closing her fingers over the power crystal, she put her hand out over the hole and shut her eyes.

She recalled what the mages had taught her. She channelled her life energy through the gem, and pictured a perfectly opaque barrier over where she wanted the protection, in this case the opening in front of her. She did her best to ignore the snow, blowing in from the sides, pricking against her skin, the icy cold gnawing at her exposed arms, and the escaped strands of hair brushing against her face irritatingly, and just focused on the hole in front of her.

She cracked one eye open, just enough to see red light flowing from the crystal in her palm, over to the hole in front of her, creating a transparent barrier. She quickly screwed her eyes shut once again.

She poured more of her energy into it, making the shield as strong as possible, she did  _ not  _ want to do this again. She felt the natural magic her body carried surge through her veins, heading towards her arm and through the power gem, which acted as a conductor.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally felt the jewel in her hand crumble to ash, its purpose fulfilled. She opened her eyes and took an unsteady step back from the edge of the hole, then promptly felt her knees give out.

Before she face-planted into the snow, she felt a pair of warm hand wrap around her biceps. She didn't need to open her eyes - When had she closed them? - to hear Branch whispering “Goddamit,” and awkwardly shifting her into a bridal carry.

As she felt sleepiness tugging gently at her mind, she noticed that the boy holding her was weirdly warm.  _ Probably a dragon thing,  _ was the last thing her mind processed before she gave into the urge and passed out cold.

* * *

 

As she opened her eyes blearily for the second time that day, Poppy realized that she wasn't cold anymore. She was buried under at least four heavy blankets in a cubby hole. She smelt smoke, and lifted her head curiously to see Branch, sitting just a little way away, poking at a small fire with a stick.

He must have seen her move out of the corner of his eye, because he turned to her with a smirk on his lips. “The dead arises, I see.” He said, deadpan.

“Ugh,” Was all she could manage before a yawn took hold of her vocal chords. She hastily wiped the sleep out of her purple eyes. “Did - did it work?”

He nodded, and pointed one slim finger at the hole above them, which now had a rippling, red light barrier preventing the snow smashing against it from getting into the cavern. “Is it too late to ask you to change it to a nicer color?”

She snorted, and swung her legs out of the cubby hole and tentatively putting her feet into the snow, not forgetting what had happened that morning. The snow was clearly melting, judging by how it squished when she put her foot on it.

She looked around, and noticed that the sun must have set while she was passed out, because the cavern was much darker than she was accustomed to. It seemed to be lit mainly by Branch’s fire and the multicolored power crystals that littered the walls, their glow a lot more prominent in the dark.

Just a moment after she had realized this, she heard a loud neigh from nearby. She turned her head to the side to see Fuzzbert cantering towards her.

“Hey boy!” She exclaimed, as her horse pushed his muzzle into her hand anxiously. She started stroking his mane. “It's okay! I'm fine.”

After several minutes of stroking and comforting words, Fuzzbert finally settled down next to where she was standing. She knelt next to him until she heard the deep breaths that confirmed that her horse was asleep.

She looked over to the fire a couple metres away, to see Branch completely immersed in a book next to it. As she glanced down to the snow at her feet, a wicked grin crossed her face as she thought of the perfect way to build a friendship with him.

The look of utter confusion on Branch’s face for a split second after he got hit right in the nose with a snowball was worth than a thousand diamond rings. But once he heard the gleeful cackle from nearby, something between anger, annoyance and exasperation crossed his face. “What are you, six?” He asked, wiping the slushy ice off his face.

She responded with another snowball, this time hitting his forehead. He spluttered, setting his book down. “Are you serious?” He growled, furiously scrubbing at his forehead.

She shrugged innocently, and bent down to started making another snowball, but paused when he felt one hit her in the shoulder. She looked up at the raven-haired boy, in disbelief.

“Are you happy now?” He demanded, picking up his book again.

She laughed. “Oh, no. You are having a snowball fight with me, whether you like it or not. Even if I have to keep pelting you with snow.”

He tried to ignore her, but after the seventh snowball, hitting him in the cheek, he gave in. “If I have a snowball fight with you, will you leave me alone afterwards?” He sighed, closing his book and setting it in the snow next to him.

“Yup,” She said cheerfully, then darted behind the huge, old tree. “Try and hit me!”

Poor Branch. He had no idea that the girl he happened to be in an involuntary snowball match with, happened to be the  _ queen  _ of snowball fights.

Within minutes, Branch was drenched and freezing, and Poppy had only been hit once or twice. She teased him, moving weaving from side to side, avoiding his snowballs, while Branch just seemed to get more and more competitive.

Her teases had slowly dissolved into puns and jokes that made Branch throw snowballs even harder than before.

“Hey Branch? What happened when the snowman lied?” The only reply she received was a groan. “His girlfriend gave him the cold shoulder!” Her giggling wasn't deterred by the snowball hitting her in the chin.

“No, no, I've got a good one,” She insisted, nailing Branch in the chest with a particularly nice shot. “Do the birds know where they're going when they fly south, or do they just wing it every time?” She almost collapsed with laughter.

“Okay, one more. What happened to the stressed out snowman?” She grinned, looking the bronze-skinned boy right in the eye. “He had a meltdown.” She almost doubled up, trying to keep her snickers from spilling out of her lips.

What she didn't notice was the boy in front of her frown slightly, as an unfamiliar, warm sensation stirred inside his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is Chapter 2. Sorry it's a bit shorter than the last chapter but there wasn't as much going on on it :(. I feel like this seems a bit rushed?? Let me know you feel it too. I think Poppy would definitely be one to love terrible puns and snowball fights. Branch just goes along with it to get her to stop annoying him (but I bet he secretly enjoyed it). Buuut anyway have a lovely day y'all!
> 
> ~FALFAL


	3. A History and a Cannibalistic Spirit

The strange thing about being totally isolated from the rest of the world, is that it causes you to wonder if the rest of the world even exists.

She remembered her friends. Her closest circle of friends called themselves the Snack Pack, after the time they had almost been eaten by a Krampus one winter. Though they did look back on it afterwards and laugh at the demon’s ridiculous appearance, it certainly hadn’t been funny at the time when the gang of six-year-olds had come face-to-face with a furry, chained goat-demon with a lolling, slobbering tongue. The experience had apparently been so memorable that they had deemed it enough to name their entire group after.

She remembered her father. His hugs always smelt of turf fire, warm bread and clean cotton, those comforting scents only ever masked by the expensive oils he was expected to wear, as king. She believed he had the brightest smile in the entire village, and he was incredibly popular with the other kingdoms, due to his natural cheery, extroverted personality. He had been predictably saddened by the passing of her mother, but, in her opinion, had done an excellent job of raising her, along with the keep’s staff.

She ticked off all these facts and more, every fact she could think of about her father and friends each morning when she was half-heartedly nibbling on a carrot or potato for breakfast.

And yet, it seemed almost as if the images were becoming faded, bleached, in the frame of her mind. Left to nothing but crushing silence and her own echoing thoughts for hours a day in the cavern with nothing but a horse and a cranky dragon-boy to keep her company, it felt like maybe her life before had all just been a long, elaborate daydream to keep herself company.

The cavern had become her entire life. She had lost track of the days, as the only window to the outside world was just a swirling wall of white. Had it been three days? Seven? It felt like forever, but perhaps that was just because she had nothing to do for hours but watch the power gems glow and Fuzzbert graze.

Her attempts at befriending the aforementioned dragon-boy had been met with… little enthusiasm, to say the least. Her biggest success was getting him to trust her enough to fall asleep in her presence. Well, actually, perhaps that was just the exhaustion finally knocking him out after too long. Still, it had to count for something, right?

Branch was sitting against the wizened old tree in the middle of the cavern, reading a ridiculously thick book. Poppy didn’t have anything against reading, but who on earth could have the patience to read a thousand and a half pages on the same subject?!

Sighing as boredom once again clouded her mind, she swept a few tendrils of vivid hair out of her eyes. _I need a bath,_ the back of her mind whispered dully. She realized that she really needed to do something if even her inner voice lacked its usual energy.

Getting up from where she had been lying in the grass, she wondered if Branch startled easily. It was a trait that most of her non-knight friends possessed, so she was curious to see if Branch was the jumpy sort. Poppy crouched down in a stance that would have made Cybil proud, back when she was still a squire in stealth training. She ducked her head and held her arms out slightly to help her keep her balance, then moved one foot forward. She gently rolled from the pad of her foot onto her heel, thankful for the grass muffling the slight thump.

She carefully did the same with the other foot, moving slowly yet steadily across the stretch of grass preventing her from reaching Branch. Her mind slipped back into her training, and suddenly she was sixteen again, creeping through knee-high grass as her mentor watched with an eagle eye. _Toe to heel,_ Cybil’s voice echoed in her ears, _Flow with the terrain._

Poppy probably would have toppled over like a newborn foal under the influence of mead at this point if she were still in her training years, but after half a dozen more years of horse riding, climbing, and drills, she had built up enough muscle in her legs to easily keep herself steady.

She was only a couple of metres away from Branch’s left hand side now, near enough to see the slight scowl that seemed to be his resting face. He glared at the book he was reading as if it had personally insulted him.

As Poppy approached him, his frown seemed to get deeper, and his fingers coiled around the corner of the page he was reading. Once she got closer, she noticed the tension in his shoulders and the twitching of his ears.

Finally, she was close enough to reach out and grab him, hovering just behind his shoulder. He seemed so on edge already, one loud noise and he’d--

“I know you’re there, Poppy!” Branch’s voice cracked through the silent air, startling the guilty party into flopping onto the grass. He twisted around to glare at her, slamming his book shut with a muffled thump.

Still, she smiled, sitting up to flash him the most innocent expression she could pull off. “Aw, how’d you spot me?”

Branch scoffed. “You’re not exactly the master of stealth,”

The indignant face that was brought on by these words was certainly not faked. “Hey! I’ll have you know, I passed my stealth training!”

He gave her a shadow of a half-smirk as he raised his eyebrows. “I think your teacher must have been blind.” He gestured to her bright hair.

Poppy pouted as she tugged on a curl, as shocking pink as ever. Branch just gave her a smug look and reopened his book, though how he found the page he had previously been on, Poppy had no idea.

“Whatcha reading?” Poppy asked, unwilling to let the conversation die just as she felt she was making progress. Branch just sighed, and showed her the cover.

It was a faded, navy blue and in slightly chipped gold writing on the front, it read _A History of Power Crystals and How To Use Them_.

“How is it?” Poppy genuinely wanted to know. Sure, she felt like that many pages on a subject that she knew wasn’t all that complex was a little excessive, but Branch seemed interested, so it mustn’t be too boring.

“S’okay,” Was the mumbled reply, and she pursed her lips. Well, as they say, if you want something done, do it yourself.

“Well, there must be a lot more to soul crystals than I thought, if it’s that long. In magic training, the mages didn’t really spend much time on them. We just spent most of it learning about the different categories of magic, and also a little too much history, though a lot of us thought that that part was unnecessary. Well, I suppose that you are supposed to learn from mistakes made in history, and magical mistakes _can_ turn out pretty bad. What do you think?” She paused her blather to see if Branch would finally add to the conversation.

He didn’t say anything, but she could tell from the lack of movement in his eyes that he had paused his reading to listen to her.

After about twenty seconds of utter silence but for the trickle of water from the waterfall, echoing and amplifying around the cavern, Branch gave a tiny groan of frustration and looked up at her. “You’re not going away, are you?”

Poppy suppressed a giggle at that, and shuffled over to peer down at the tiny writing on the page Branch was reading. “Nope.”

Branch just sighed, and turned the page. On the next, there was a detailed, yet colourless sketch of a power gem. Poppy squinted, trying to understand the ridiculously small text. Once her eyesight started to go blurry from the strain, she gave up and sat back, staring absentmindedly up at the leafless branches above them.

She closed her eyes, and started to doze off, before being startled awake by the clearing of a throat. “Yes?”

Branch glanced down at his book, before reluctantly meeting her gaze. “You used the wrong kind of power crystal. For the barrier up there.” He glanced towards the huge hole in the ceiling, before dropping it back to his own hands, as he picked at his fingernails.

“What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ ,” Branch scowled, picking harder at his nails, pulling tiny droplets of blood to the surface, “That red power crystals are supposed to be used for destruction magic. You should have used a yellow crystal, for restoration.”

Poppy was silent for a beat, before letting out a tiny _snerk_. Branch stared at her, expression somber as ever. Her tiny grin widened into a large smile, and she let out a laugh, falling against the trunk of the tree.

Branch furrowed his brow, though he had visibly relaxed. “What?”

“Nothing! It’s just…” She covered her mouth to keep the giggles at bay. “You-you looked so serious! Like it was a crime or something that I had used the wrong freaking colour!”

Branch rolled his eyes. “It means that the barrier is up there is less powerful than it could’ve been,” But clearly her laughter was infectious enough to cause one corner of his mouth to hesitantly quirk up into a lopsided almost-smile.

Poppy would be lying if she said that she didn’t feel a twinge of pride at getting him to stop scowling.

* * *

 

It had been a relatively peaceful day. Well, “day” continuing to be a loose kind of term, seeing as she had no way of telling the time.

The waterfall had mostly frozen over, so what was still liquid just trickled lazily into the icy pond beneath it. Fuzzbert was snoozing underneath the tree, Branch was digging up some vegetables from the patch, and Poppy was braiding blades of grass into bracelets, like she used to do when she was a little girl.

Okay, yes, she still liked to do it in the summers when she had time off, but life was short. What’s the point of not enjoying the simple things while you still could?

The grass in the cavern was different to the kind in her village. Where she grew up, the grass was thick and coarse and bristly. It tickled unpleasantly if you lay down on it the wrong way. Here, the grass was soft and bendable, like thick strands of hair. She easily wove it into bangles that brushed gently up and down her arm.

“What is this place?” The words that had been echoing around in her head since she had first split the wall slipped quietly out of her mouth.

Branch, who was washing his hands in the barely-liquid water, glanced up, curiosity and confusion glinting in his eyes. Poppy cleared her throat.

“I mean, this place is so… _perfect_. How did you find it?” Branch gave her an unreadable look and wandered over, wiping his damp hands on his worn clothes.

“Dragons have been inhabiting here for centuries,” he replied, flopping down onto the grass beside her.

“But- How--?”

“An ancient dragon claimed this cave and basically told everyone else to screw off, and that’s how this place came to belong to the dragons.” Branch shrugged, pulling up strands of grass and fidgeting with them awkwardly.

“So the carvings on the door…”

“It’s some stupid tradition. Each new ‘resident’ has to add their own carving,” he’s is definitely avoiding her eyes now, ripping up the strands in his hands in an agitated way, “I added mine years ago.”

Poppy could sense that it was a touchy subject, and though she was curious about the old woman in Branch’s carving, she dropped it for fear of him becoming even more closed off than he already was.

Branch changed the subject anyway. “D’you know what creatures lived here before the dragons?”

She turned to him, to see the tiniest smirk on his face, breaking through his cold exterior like the sun on a rainy day. “No?”

“The Trolls. They were this race of tiny fuckin’ elves, or goblins, or something, abnormally happy and colourful.” Poppy let out a shrill yelp of excitement.

“Apparently my family’s descended from them! We named our entire village after that! What a coincidence is that?”

Branch, however, tilted his head to the side with an expression of vague disgust on his face. “Uh, I read that the things were about this size,” he held his index finger and thumb about three inches apart. “How exactly did that happen?”

“Just, try not to think about it,” Poppy wasn’t about to let weird thoughts get her down about her heritage, so she made a dismissive hand waving motion. “Anyways, I was named after the happiest Troll of all, Queen Poppy!”

Branch squinted, awkwardly tugging at the hem of his top, “It’s been awhile since I read the book on Trolls. Wasn’t she the one who got the entire species eaten by Bergens?”

Poppy probably should have taken more offense at his slander of her namesake, but she was really just too excited to be telling someone about her history. “No! She’s the one that convinced the Bergens not to eat them! Just by singing and dancing to them! That’s so… amazing!”

Branch just raised his eyebrows. “I think you should try and use that method on the next thing that tries to eat you,” his face was totally solemn and serious. “You’ll have to fill me in on the results.”

Poppy grinned, putting her hands on her hips. “Maybe I will!” She stood up abruptly, startling the boy beside her, and strode over to stand a little in front of him, positioning her arms so that she looked like a bard playing an invisible lute. She strummed the air gently, and began to do an uncoordinated dance in a circle.

“ _Looking up at a sunny sky, so shiny and blue, and there’s a butterfly, well isn’t that a super fantastic sign?_ ” She stumbled over a rock and had to steady herself, so the next words came out a small bit weaker than intended. “ _It’s gonna be a fantastic day._ ”

Branch booed quietly, leaning back on his hands. He gave her another smirk when she almost tripped over the stone, and she made sure to sing the next verse a little more forcefully for that.

“ _Such marvelousness its gonna bring, got a pocket full o’ songs that I’m gonna sing, and I’m ready to take on anything,_ ” She did her little hop-skip dance over, right next to Branch, and all but yelled into his ear, “Hooray!”

Branch sighed and closed his eyes. “Okay, I’ve heard enough. Stop.”

“ _Some super fun surprise around each corner,_ ” Poppy pranced over to Fuzzbert, causing him to grumble softly at the noise and turn his head away to keep napping. “ _Just riding on a rainbow, I'm gonna be okay._ ”

Branch had relaxed slightly at her diminuendo. Oh boy, he had no idea what was in for him. Still strumming madly at the air, she tiptoed quietly over to him for the second time in her duration of being in the cavern. This time, however, he was looking significantly less high-strung.

“ _Hey!_ ” Branch’s eyes snapped open and he suddenly stiffened so that he was bolt upright. Pretending to be oblivious to his glares, Poppy whirled in a circle and giggled. “ _I’m not giving up today, there’s nothing getting in my way, and if you knock-knock me over,_ ”

Branch shuffled away from her not-so-subtly, covering his ears, seemingly sensing the climax in volume. “Just--”

“ _I will get back up again!_ ”

“--Shut up!” Poppy flinched slightly at Branch’s harsh tone. She wasn’t exactly used to people telling her to stop singing. The change in atmosphere made something feel sour in her stomach, so she let her arms droop back to their place at her sides.

Branch climbs to his feet jerkily, and all but stomps towards the tiny farm to angrily pull up more vegetables. Turnips, it looked like. Sighing, Poppy sat on the ground to make more grass bracelets.

For some reason, her heart wasn’t really in it this time.

* * *

 

Poppy’s eyes opened with much effort, to reveal the top of the cubbyhole she was curled up in. Her thoughts still blurry and undefined with sleep, she vaguely registered an obnoxious scratching noise occurring beside her. But it wasn’t coming from the cavern, it was coming from the side that was to the stone wall of the mountain.

Her heart thumping, she swung her legs down from the cubbyhole and planted them on the ground. Glancing up at the hole in the roof, Poppy noted that the snow was a darker grey, meaning that it must be night. She took a few steps away from the noises from the wall, never turning her back to it.

Branch and Fuzzbert were sleeping. Poppy wasn’t sure if she should just wake them up. Sure, it probably wasn’t a good thing that something was trying to get in at her, but she _really_ didn’t want to have to deal with a grouchy Branch if it turned out to be nothing.

As she stood there for too long, staring at the cubbyhole and pondering her options, the scraping got louder and louder. She rubbed at her irritated ears, cringing at the awful racket. Then she froze.

There was a crack in the wall. It was tiny, and she could barely make it out in the dim glow of the power gems, but she could see it, a small blemish in the stone.

Another scratch, and the fracture spiderwebbed out.

Her feet were moving before she even realized where she was going. “Branch!” She hissed, reaching his side.

The boy shot up and his feet were on the ground within two seconds. “What is it?” He asked, blue eyes surprisingly bright and alert for having just been dead to the world.

Poppy motioned her head in the direction of the cubbyhole she had been sleeping in. The fissure had gotten bigger, she realized as her stomach dropped. It now took up almost all of the cubbyhole.

Branch was racing over there, so Poppy followed close behind. They both skidded to a halt, however, as a chunk of the wall fell out, and a hand extended through the hole.

It definitely didn’t look… _human_. The hand was abnormally large, for one thing. Its fingers seemed to  have too many joints, and the skin was a horrible, pasty white colour that was awfully reminiscent of a decomposing body, not to mention that it was filthy. It didn’t have nails, it had long, yellow talons that looked like they could shred a fully-grown mountain lion to fillet.

The hand was retracted back into the wall, and Poppy was suddenly aware of Branch, still as a statue beside her.

“ _No._ ” His whisper was one of complete and utter horror, like the Earth was going up in flames before his very eyes. Poppy felt every muscle in her body tense up in terror.

There was a booming noise, and the wall of the cubbyhole crumbled entirely, pieces of rock spilling out and rolling everywhere. A figure emerged from the dust, but it wasn’t human, it _couldn’t_ be human.

Its limbs were long, they were too long, and thin, like fragile twigs. The rest of it was just as skeletal, and the outline of the head seemed to be bald. It was crouched, or hunched, she couldn’t really tell.

Then, in a flash, the figure leapt upwards and latched onto the wall, scuttling up with its arms and legs it like a horrifically deformed spider. It turned its head towards the pair on the ground, and Poppy felt her heart go from thudding painfully to stopping completely.

She couldn’t make out details from such a distance, but what she could see was _hideous_. Its milky, blank eyes were far too wide, almost perfectly round. The rest of its body was the same sickly grey shade as its hand. It was, indeed bald, completely free of hair at all, in fact. Its skin was shriveled, pulled tightly against its elongated form, showing off seemingly every bone in its body. Poppy felt sick just from looking at it.

“Don’t. _Fucking._ Move.” The harsh whisper from beside her nearly made her jump a foot in the air. She glanced at Branch, who was keeping his eyes locked on the _thing_ that was climbing the walls beside her.

“What?” She questioned, doing her best not to move her mouth, but without much practice, she probably moved her lips a lot more than intended.

“I mean it,” Branch tore his eyes away from the creature for half a moment to send her a warning look. “Don’t move a muscle until I tell you to. Not even if it’s close enough to grab you. _Don’t run_.”

But someone telling you not to move was one of the surefire ways to make you want to move. Especially for Poppy, someone who spends all her time either dancing or fighting, activities that are full of motion. Poppy felt her arms twitch, her legs prickle and her neck go stiff from keeping it in such a fixed position. Tingles shot through her body, urging her to either fight or flee.

Then, in one sudden jerk, the thing launched itself from the ceiling to land _right beside her_. It stood in a hunched stance for a moment, before lifting its head and letting out the most demonic screech that Poppy had ever heard.

It ground into her eardrums and caused them and the rest of her head to explode with pain, but she stood her ground. Poppy stood a still as she could, despite the churning in her stomach and the excruciating ache in her ears.

She risked a glance to the side, and immediately wished that she hadn’t. Its mouth was stretched open, revealing its teeth, sticking out at odd angles from its gums. They were horrifically long and sharp, like enormous fangs. But then she saw the rest of its face, and felt like throwing up.

The worst part was that it looked almost human. Its nose and ears were perfectly normal, if you ignored the sallow colour. Its eyes, mouth and cheekbones were all positioned in the correct places. It was looking more and more like a corpse the more she watched it.

It drew in a raspy breath, then let out another shrill scream. It waited for a moment, like it was expecting something, before prowling slowly away. Then she heard a low murmur from beside her.

“Run.” She didn’t need to be told twice. She took off in a sprint, heading in the direction of a terrified Fuzzbert, who was on his feet and straining against his rope (as he wasn’t allowed to roam free while Branch was sleeping).

Behind her, Poppy heard a roar, and the sound of heavy feet hitting the grass. She reached Fuzzbert, as far from the creature as she could get, and looked around to see Branch in his dragon form.

She could only really see his silhouette, the glinting of his scales, and the cerulean glow of his eyes, blinking steadily in the darkness. There was another screech from the monstrosity that had just moved away, and Poppy could see its outline throwing itself at Branch.

Before she could cry out a warning, however, the entire cavern was bathed in a warm light. Out of Branch’s mouth, there were reddish-gold flames, blasting angrily. Poppy could feel the heat from the other side of the cavern, and she moved closer to Fuzzbert out of fear. It was somehow beautiful and disturbing at the same time.

Then, as abruptly as they had come, the flames died, and there was only the sound of powerful claws crunching down on bone.The piercing shriek of a dying animal echoed around the cave, and then complete and utter silence.

Poppy numbly made her way over to a now human Branch, who was swaying, exhausted, on his feet. She stared at him mutely for probably too long.

“What-what was that thing?” Her voice was hushed, but it cracked slightly at the end. Branch glanced up at her, expression blank.

“Wendigo,” He mumbled, eyelids drooping. “The spirit of a cannibal. Can only see motion. ‘Night.” And with that, he dragged his feet over to one of the cubbyholes and passed out in it, leaving her to stare at the gaping hole where she used to prefer to sleep.

Needless to say, Poppy didn’t get much shut-eye that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that there are many different depictions of the wendigo. Yes, I know that I based this description off the video game Until Dawn. Yes, i kNOW THAT THIS CHAPTER IS RIDICULOUSLY LATE. PLEASE DON'T EXPECT ANY SORT OF REGULAR UPDATING SCHEDULE
> 
> Some more info on wendigos 'cause I'm not sure if it's gonna come up in the story again: Wendigos happen when a person eats another person, and the cannibal gets inhabited by the spirit of the wendigo. Wendigos (in the depiction that I used) can only be killed when you use fire to weaken their tough af skin. You're not actually supposed to kill them though, 'cause then that releases their spirit to go haunt some other cannibal. They're from Native American mythology, and were actually used to scare people off from eating their family during the winter when cabin fever got really bad. They can only see motion, and they use their scream to startle prey into moving. They can move incredibly fast and are insanely strong, so you can't fight them off without fire.
> 
> Also, can I just say that while it was super freaking fun to describe the wendigos, all the events in Until Dawn occur at night (bc they have to survive "until dawn" haha get it) so it was impossible to get a well lit pic of a wendigo to get a good look at them?? Like all the pictures of them are dark af seriously they need to invest in some lamps or smth


	4. A Quarrel and a Lie

The snow was slowing down outside. Poppy sat next to Fuzzbert, stroking his mane gently, and keeping her eyes fixated on the hole in the ceiling. Every couple of minutes, for a split second, the swirling blockade of snow would part and reveal a grey sky.

She began counting the breaks. They started off half an hour apart and barely a second long. Then, as she moved from dragging her fingers through Fuzzbert’s mane to dancing her fingers up and down his snout as he leaned into her touch, the gaps became closer together, about twenty minutes apart, lasting almost thirty seconds.

When she could see the sky for almost a minute each time, and they occurred every fifteen minutes, Branch came over to see if she was still alive.

“Uh… you haven't looked away from the sky for like, two and a half hours. Are you, um, okay?”

She just hummed in reply, eyes still glued to the sky.

“You look kinda tired,” A thump from beside her, signalling that Branch had just sat himself down. “Maybe you should, uh, take a break?”

That got her to look away from the storm outside. Her neck cracked painfully when she turned it to look at the boy beside her, and she winced at the stiffness. Poppy had to blink a couple of times to see properly, and her vision still wasn't exactly crystal clear from being stuck on the bright white snow for so long, but she could tell that he seemed vaguely uncomfortable.

“You're… worried about me?” A small grin spread across her lips, despite the muscles in her face feeling strange from not moving for so long.

“No!” Branch’s response came out a lot louder than he probably intended, and he hastily continued on, tugging desperately on the hem of his ratty shirt. “I just, I mean, you looked like you were going catatonic!”

The grin widened, and Poppy flopped onto the grass beside Fuzzbert, eyes sparkling. “You're worried about me! That's so nice!”

Branch scowled down at her, eyes narrowed, for a few moments, before looking away. He glared at the waterfall on the other side of the cavern, a red flush creeping up his neck and tinting his bronze skin rosy.

Suddenly a realization hit Poppy right in the chest, and the giant smile filling her face shrunk and disappeared. She sat up. “I can't just leave you here alone.” She murmured.

“What– what do you mean?” Branch looked away from trying to set the waterfall on fire with his eyes to blink at her, bemused.

“I can't just–” She waved her arm in agitation– “leave you to be alone again!”

Branch sighed. “Don't.”

“No, Branch!” She ran her hands through her hair, tugging it out of its loose ponytail and letting the bright hair fall around her shoulders. “This place, it’s so empty–”

“Stop!” A sharp exclamation halted her speech, Branch glaring at her with frustration in his eyes and in the nails that were dragging their way agitatedly up and down his sleeve. But it didn’t deter her.

“I’m going to have to come back and visit you.” And it was final. No matter what Branch said, she was coming back to this gloomy cavern to visit this gloomy boy, and he couldn’t stop her.

“No, Poppy!” Branch’s lips were pressed together, turning pale, and he was scratching at his arm more roughly. Until his uneven nails caused a tiny rip in the raggedy fabric, and he moved to running his hand through his hair. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna go back to your, your palace or wherever the hell princesses go–"

Poppy let out a rather undignified squawk. “I don’t live in a palace! I live in a keep, thank you very much, how freaking big do you think our village is?”

Branch stared at her in silence for a moment, an  _ Are you serious?  _ Kind of look on his face. Then he just rolled his eyes and continued. “–and you aren’t going to tell anyone about this place.  _ Anyone.  _ In fact, it’d just be easier if you just forget all about it. Clear?” His azure eyes burned into hers, unblinking and determined, but the way he was twisting at the skin of his hands gave away how unsure he was about this situation.

Poppy narrowed her eyes, before setting her hands exasperatedly on her hips. “Absolutely not.” She stood up shakily, temporarily forgetting how stiff her joints were, and half glowered/half pouted down at Branch, who, in that moment, bore a remarkable resemblance to a deer who had just spotted an arrow aimed right between his eyes. “I cannot, and will not, leave you here to stew in your own loneliness.”

Indignant sputtering noises sounded from the boy beside her, which she promptly ignored, turning away and looking down at Fuzzbert, who tilted his head up curiously to presumably look at her with the eyes that were concealed by his white, flowing mane.

Eventually the sputtering died down, soon replaced by the sound of grass being ripped up angrily. She sat back down beside him. “You know I’m right.” A scoff.

“Actually, I know that you’re going to get yourself  _ killed _ .” Poppy looked over, surprised and a little miffed, at Branch, whose jaw was clenched tightly. “The woods around this place are dangerous.”

Now it was Poppy’s turn to look incredulous. “Have you somehow forgotten the fact that I’m, y’know, a knight?! I went through fourteen  _ freaking  _ years of training, I think I can handle myself!”

“I just think that you’re not thinking this through!” Branch threw his hands into the air before letting them drop back to the ground with a painful  _ thump _ . “It’ll be pretty damn hard to get through the woods regularly without being eaten eventually.”

Poppy raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. “I had a pretty easy time getting here, did I not?”

Branch gave her the side-eye before glaring down at his hands. “Well, that might just be because  _ some  _ creatures are smart enough to understand that you shouldn’t wander around in the middle of a forest right before a storm hits!” He spat out the words like they burned his tongue.

Poppy pushed down the outrage that rose up her throat like bile. “I’ll be fine.” She said steadfastly. “I haven’t met a beast that I couldn’t take down yet.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from beside her. “Oh, you we really fine when that hydra attacked, weren’t you?” Branch hissed, before his eyes widened and he clamped his lips shut with a  _ clack  _ of his teeth.

Poppy felt herself pale. “How– how do you know about that?” She tried to keep her voice flat, but it came out as more of a croak.

Branch looked away, brows pulling together and lips pressed into a strained line. “It, uh, it doesn’t matter.”

“ _ No. _ ” She tightened her crossed arms and narrowed her eyes, staring at him directly as he refused to meet her eyes. “ _ How  _ do you know about the hydra?”

Branch looked up so fast that she could practically her a whipping sound, but he only met her eyes for a moment before fixing them at a point over her shoulder. “Do you really think that it was a coincidence?”

She felt her breath leave her. Poppy was pretty sure that she knew what he was talking about, but she needed confirmation. “Do I think that  _ what  _ was coincidence?”

Branch let out a puff of air, picking harshly at his nails. “That– that a forest fire started  _ just  _ as it was about to rip you to shreds?"

Poppy stared at him, unable to make a sound other than the tiny, weak  _ oh  _ that slipped from her mouth without permission.

Branch still wouldn’t look at her. “Whatever,” he grumbled, climbing to his feet and storming over to the waterfall without looking back.

Poppy was still shocked and still irritated, but she’ll be damned if she let that waver her decision about visiting Branch.

* * *

 

The storm was over when she woke up the next morning. Poppy lay for a few seconds, frozen, as she stared up at the clear sapphire sky. The next moment, she was up and scrambling clumsily out of her cubbyhole.

“Fuzzbert!” Said horse startled awake from his slumber, huffing out of his nose and looking up at her. “Fuzzy, look, look! Look at the sky!” Fuzzbert didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic as she was.

“So it seems that your barrier didn’t last as long as we’d hoped.” Said a flat voice from beside her. Poppy looked over to Branch, who gestured to the grass around them, where there was a thin layer of snow dusting the spaces between the blades of grass. “It dissipated at some point during the night.”

She shrugged, not really paying attention. Something occurred to her, as she lit up again. “Fuzzbert! We can go home!” That got his attention, as his ears perked up and his tail lifted in excitement.

The metal ball of homesickness in her stomach that she hadn’t even noticed had grown there seemed to melt as she realized that she was going home  _ today _ . She buried her face in her horse’s fur to conceal the laugh of pure  _ joy  _ that threatened to pour out of her mouth.

A while later – Poppy still didn’t have a great sense of time – Fuzzbert was saddled up, and Poppy was fully suited up once again, her armour glinting beautifully in the pale light of the morning. She had her helmet tucked under one arm, and was fingering the elegant designs.

She met eyes with Branch, whose face was just utterly emotionless. Lips unmoving, eyes blank, brows still stuck in their permanent furrow.

She approached him, fingers fidgeting harder at her helmet, pushing the visor up and down anxiously. “Uhm, I guess this is goodbye… for now.”

Branch raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms at the hint of what they had argued over the day before. “This is  _ goodbye _ .” He said, scowling harder.

She shook her head, but didn’t want to get into another quarrel, so she shoved her helmet unceremoniously onto her head and flipped up the visor to get a better look at Branch. His face was once again a stony shell, completely indifferent and glacial.

Poppy walked over to Fuzzbert, taking him gently by the reins and leading him over to the blank wall, before taking one last glance over her shoulder at Branch, who was watching her leave with detached eyes. She quickly looked back to the wall, flipping her visor over her eyes with one hand and placing the other on the cold rock.

It split open with an ear-aching grinding sound, and Fuzzbert grumbled from beside her. She led him through the hole and the tunnel.

For reasons she didn’t understand, she almost felt like dragging her feet. Just a little while ago, she had been practically bouncing off the cavern walls in excitement for her return home. Now she felt a small, nauseous twinge in her chest as she left the tunnel and into the snowy grass of the forest at the foot of the mountain.

Poppy mounted Fuzzbert quickly, and kicked her ankles weakly into his side. “Home, Fuzzy.” She commanded, though it came out the tiniest bit shaky.

Fuzzbert certainly didn’t need any more encouragement, as he took off like a harpy was nipping at his heels.

* * *

 

Poppy was reaching the edge of her village when the excited shouts of the residents of Troll Village started to ring out.

“The princess! The princess!”

“Princess Poppy is back!”

“Poppy is okay!”

“Poppy! Poppy! Poppy!”

Excited villagers started to pour out of their doors to greet her. She tugged on Fuzzbert’s reins to slow him down. His galloping slowed to a quiet clopping along the cobblestones, as she waved to the joyful people surrounding her, and smiled at one excited child who almost leapt off her father’s shoulders.

Then she reached the keep, and saw an old man hobbling out the front door. “Poppy!”

She almost fell off her horse in her excitement to reach him. “Dad!” She threw her arms around King Peppy, who hugged her back with all the force in his old body.

Poppy felt gentle tears splash against her freckled cheeks, and quickly brushed them away with the back of her hand as she pulled back to see the tears in her father’s eyes as well.

She gave him a watery smile and pulled back fully, but not before grabbing his wrinkled, veiny hands to cradle them in her own soft, youthful ones. “I– I missed you so much.” She choked out, feeling tears build up and spill past her dark lashes once again.

Peppy just smiled back and yanked her in for another hug. “I missed you too, Poppy.” He whispered into her ear, and she let herself sink into the scent of home.

Poppy suddenly felt other familiar presences surround her. A chorus of “Poppy!”s filled the air, and she once again pulled herself reluctantly out of her father’s embrace, but felt her heart lift even higher at the sight of the faces of the Snack Pack.

“Don’t ever disappear like that again, Poppy!” Suki exclaimed, throwing her arms around Poppy and burying her face into her neck.

“You gave us quite the scare,” came the northwest European lilt of Biggie, as he placed a gentle hand on her back.

“Poppy! You’re okay!” Satin and Chenille exclaimed simultaneously as they each grabbed one of her hands.

Suki released Poppy from her iron embrace, but she was immediately enveloped again by Cooper, though he was so tall that her feet were actually lifted off the ground through the force of his hug.

Over Cooper’s shoulder, Poppy met the glittering green eyes of Guy Diamond, as he made his way by a small, impromptu dance number over to her. “Poppy!” he sang, flashing her his brightest smile. He locked her into a hug from the side and squeezed tightly.

Poppy felt something strong knock into her from her other side, and looked down to see Smidge, who, due to her small stature and the fact that Poppy was actually being lifted up higher than usual, grasped Poppy’s hips and thighs in a bone-breaking embrace.

“Okay, everyone, you might want to calm down. She needs to breath.” Poppy recognized a quiet voice that caused her heart to flip-flop in her chest. She met eyes with Creek, and gave him her widest smile.

She was dropped back to the ground by Cooper, and managed to extricate herself from the other two with maybe just a shallow bruise from the vigour of Smidge’s hug. But, then she was immediately leaped on by Mr. Dinkles, Biggie’s cocker spaniel, and had her face licked off.

“No– I mean– d-down boy!” she giggled, squirming, while trying in vain to stop the over-excited dog. He calmed down a little, wagging his tail furiously and propping himself up to look at her, with his warm brown eyes, by placing his paws on her thighs. Poppy cooed, stroking his fur and scratching behind his ears.

“Come here, Mr. Dinkles,” Biggie called, and Poppy deflated just a little as she watched the dog obediently trot back to his owner’s heels.

But then, she looked up and all negative feelings seemed to melt away when she met eyes with Creek, who was giving that subtle smile that always seemed to make her weak at the knees. He was, as always, shirtless, but they were all so used to it that it bothered no one. His long hair flowed down his back and over his shoulders, the cerulean at the roots of his hair melting into a pleasant cyan green once it reached the tips.

Creek walked, barefoot and angelic, towards her, his kind eyes wide and honey-yellow pants hanging loosely off his hips.

He hadn’t even reached her fully before Poppy launched herself forward and flung her arms around his neck. He smelled like… not much actually, just the very faint, smoky scent of incense. But his skin was soft and inviting, and she nuzzled her face into the crook of his collarbone.

“I missed you so much,” she mouthed into his tanned skin, and tightened her vice-like grip. Creek just patted her hair and snaked one arm around her back comfortingly.

“Ditto, Poppy. Now, I believe that the king will want to hold a feast in celebration of the return of our dear princess?”

Poppy pulled back and glanced around to Peppy, who nodded happily.

She was then enveloped in another group hug, that somehow seemed to accommodate every member of the Snack Pack.

* * *

 

Poppy sat at the head of the table, chatting enthusiastically with Chenille about the quality of cotton cloth recently. Chenille had some very strong opinions about the method the mills were using to twist the cotton into yarn, while Poppy did her best to play devil’s advocate.

Suki was off to the side, somehow playing the cornett with one hand and the harp with the other, with Satin warbling a some old ballad next to her. Biggie was deep in a discussion with King Peppy, and Smidge kept trying to sneak Mr. Dinkles scraps of meat without Biggie seeing, locking eyes with Poppy to send her huge smirk every once in awhile. Guy Diamond was stumbling through a conversation with Cooper about something that probably only Cooper understood.

Poppy felt at home.

Suddenly there was the sound of a spoon tapping against a goblet, and Chenille’s passionate speech about the overpricing of cotton yarn petered off with an annoyed expression. Poppy turned to look at the source of the sound, to see Creek standing up from where he had previously been quiet, waiting patiently for everyone to quiet down.

A chorus of “Shh!”s echoed across the table, and Creek nodded appreciatively as even Suki and Satin fell silent at the hushes, before opening his mouth to speak.

“I would just like to raise a drink, in appreciation to Poppy, who has slain the beast terrorising our village.” he smiled over to Poppy, a smile that would usually make her chest feel warm, but now just made her all too uncomfortable at the lie she had given them. Creek didn’t seem to notice her unhappiness, and continued on, “And to the Fates, for delivering Poppy back to us properly.”

Creek raised his goblet, the cider in it sloshing around dangerously. A cheer rose up from the others around the table as they brought up their own drinks, and before she knew it, they had started chanting her name. “Poppy! Poppy! Poppy!”

She usually didn’t mind this kind of attention, heck, she even enjoyed putting herself out there, but now the lie ate at her and so she just looked down as she twisted her hands in her lap, and did her best not to look guilty.

“So, Poppy!” Guy Diamond exclaimed once the chorus of her name had died down. “Tell us more about the dragon. How did the fight go?” A series of curious murmurs rose up from around the table, as everyone else looked at her expectantly.

She took a deep breath. Poppy had known that this was coming, it was common practice for a knight to recount their adventure over a hearty meal with friends. But she still got an unpleasant churning in her stomach.

Well, as they say, go big or go home.

Poppy cleared her throat. “Okay, so,” she started, “I found this tunnel, which led to this  _ huge  _ cave…”

Before she knew it, she was getting more and more invested in her made-up story. Poppy recounted a fictional series of events, which involved her slicing off the head of a mindless, savage killing machine, and spending all of the two week long storm huddled up in the cave with Fuzzbert, next to the dragon’s carcass, which is what she was forced to survive off of to prevent from starving to death.

Once her long, intricate tale was over, she was out of breath and licking her lips uncomfortably, as if the dishonesty had dried them up. The feeling of shame that had taken root in her chest increased tenfold as she realised just how much she had allowed the lie to get away from her.

Everyone was staring at her, and Poppy squirmed under their shocked gazes, thinking,  _ Oh, by the ancestors, they really must be able to see through this obvious lie– _

“Holy shit, Poppy,” breathed Satin from her place next to Suki.

There was more silence for a moment, before a round of applause broke out across the room of her closest friends and father, as they cheered her on for something she didn’t do.

Poppy kind of wished that the floor would open up like a python’s maw and swallow her whole, in that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poppy calls Fuzzbert "Fuzzy" and y'all can fuckin fight me on this.
> 
> Also, if DJ Suki can't be a fuckin DJ I guess I'll just have to make her pLAY SEVERAL INSTRUMENTS AT ONCE
> 
> I'm going through a Dear Evan Hansen phase at the moment, and so half of my brain is like "Hey, this is just like that time in DEH when Evan was lying to the Murphys!" and the other half of my brain is like "Shut the fuck up, no it isn't."
> 
> Anyway, reviews and constructive criticism are always, always welcome! Along with corrections on how life worked in the middle ages, if I've got any readers who happen to be history experts. Thanks for reading!
> 
> ~FALFAL


	5. A Party and Two Cards

A quarter moon hung in the sky, almost lonely looking, due to the lack of stars that normally accompany it. Underneath it, unusually quiet in the dim moonlight, a village sprawls out across the landscape. On one side of it, there are roads and open meadows. The other, a thick forest, full of looming trees and creatures that live in the shadowy undergrowth. Just near the centre of the village, there lies a stable of sleeping horses.

Poppy let out a long breath, peering out into the dark street and clutching a piece of paper, painstakingly dyed and dusted with crushed malachite, to her chest. She could see the stables from here, and could hear the snorting snores of the horses. Poppy felt bad for disturbing them, but it really was for the greater good, so she just swallowed and adjusted the strap of the bag slung across her shoulders.

She crept into the stables, picking up a cold, unlit lantern as she tiptoed around the old straw and piles of dung. By the ancestors, this place needed to be cleaned. Poppy saw Fuzzbert laying in his stall, and crept forward a tiny bit.

“Fuzzbert,” Poppy called, keeping her voice a low whisper. “Fuzzy, wake up.”

Fuzzbert shook his thick mane and grumbled, but nevertheless climbed to his feet. She led him out of the stables so as to not wake up the other horses, and slipped his saddle and bridle on, before climbing onto his back.

“Okay,” she breathed into his mane, “Fuzzbert, into the forest.” He started off the moment she kicked her ankles into his sides, gaining speed slowly, as he was still waking up. The clopping of his hooves echoing through the empty streets and making Poppy cringe, and pray to her ancestors that no one would come out to investigate the horse thundering down the village streets past the witching hour.

It was a relief when she felt Fuzzbert’s hooves move from the clacking rock to the soft mud and fallen pine needles of the forest. Her horse slowed down drastically, unsure about where to go from there.

Poppy caught on quickly. “Ah, okay, uh,” She clumsily pulled her bag up from where it was resting on her hip and grabbed her flint and steel from it, hastily lighting her lantern and lifting it up.

The forest honestly didn’t look all that different than she remembered it, but with only the dim light of the waning moon, plus the warm glow of the lantern in her hand casting long, inky shadows across the silvery pale carpet of the forest floor, it felt like she had stepped into a darker, more ominous version of the forest she grew up playing in. A shadow in one of the tree trunks looked eerily like the wooden carving of a Waldgeist Poppy had once seen. She shivered and looked away.

She noticed the twisted, gnarled old oak tree that she had seen when she travelled to the cave for the first time. Poppy hung the lantern on a hook on Fuzzbert’s saddle, before gently tugging his reins to the right, causing him to canter lightly in that direction, building up enough speed to leap over the shallow groove in the land that was the dried-up stream.

Fuzzbert seemed to know where to go from there, as he easily found the trail of white primroses, blooming, ethereally beautiful, in the moonlight.

They followed parallel to the flowers, until Poppy caught sight of the mouth of the cave, a gaping mouth of pitch darkness that sent shivers up and down her spine. Fuzzbert didn’t seem to like it either, his nostrils flaring and quivering nervously. She patted his head reassuringly as she slipped off his back and unhooked the lantern.

“Wish me luck,” She mumbled, before lifting the lantern and venturing into the cave. The dripping sounds of the stalactites and the echoing _thump_ of her footsteps did nothing to calm her thudding heart and frenzied instincts that were screaming to her that _something bad is going to happen, get the hell out of there._

Finally, after what was probably a short amount of time, she reached the wall of dragon carvings. Poppy held her lantern almost against the wall, squinting to spot Branch’s carving. She reached down to the bottom left and tapped it lightly, still jumping at the thundering _crunch_ of the wall splitting in two, despite anticipating it.

Poppy stepped in, to be greeted by the cavern that she had previously spent two weeks in, illuminated dimly by the multicoloured glows of the power crystals. She could just barely make out the outline of the tree in the middle.

“What the hell are you doing back here?!”

Poppy turned her head to the left to see a very pissed-off looking Branch. She flashed him a toothy smile, placing her lantern on the ground and unsubtly hiding the invitation card behind her back. “Hey Branch!”

“Poppy, it’s the middle of the fucking night. And I told you _not_ to come back here,” Branch pulled a hand through his dark hair, before grabbing a fistful of it and tugging agitatedly.

“Oh, I know!” she chirped, rocking on her heels. “But~” Poppy pulled the glittering card from behind her back. “I wanted to give you this!”

She offered him the invitation, and Branch just glanced down at it with a kind of disdain that Poppy hadn’t seen thrown at her cards before. “No.”

Poppy faltered for just a split second. “Are you sure?” She opened the card, to reveal an elaborate drawing of all her friends dancing in the tavern that the party was planned to be hosted in. She had made sure to draw in Branch’s smiling face among the crowd. “There’ll be so many people, no one will notice that you’re not from there. In fact, we get so many temporary asylum seekers that no one will care even if they realize you’re not from there. I swear, it must get so lonely—”

_“No.”_ An inhuman kind of snarl came from Branch’s throat. In that moment, Poppy realized that Branch and the dragon really _were_ one in the same. She had obviously already known that, but it was like she had drawn a bold line between Dragon-Branch and Human-Branch. But the ancient flames that had flashed in Branch’s eyes looked like they belonged to a centuries-old beast, not the boy standing in front of her.

Poppy understood, now, that just as there had been a human lingering in him while he was in dragon form, he had a dragon burning just under his skin while he was a human.

The invitation was ripped from between her numb fingers, and for a second she was overjoyed, thinking that Branch was at least accepting the invitation. But then she saw how Branch was holding the paper so tightly in anger that it was starting to rip.

“What are you—” The words didn’t just die in her throat. They practically crawled back into her lungs, caused her to make a choked noise. Because Branch _threw_ the invitation, the invitation that she had spent so long on, spent hours on, Branch tossed it onto the ground like it was less that the dirt between his toes, like she hadn’t put her entire heart into it.

But that wasn’t the end. As Poppy looked on, frozen, Branch brought his foot down onto the paper with a _crunch._ He twisted his foot, and stomped on the card again, as if he hadn’t brought his point across enough.

Branch lifted his foot off the mangled invitation, turned around in one sharp, swift movement, and walked stiffly away.

Poppy felt like her heart had been crushed along with the card. Shakily, she stepped over to look at what was once something she was extremely proud of. It was unrecognizable, torn in a hundred different places, creased beyond saving, and smeared with dirt in more places than it wasn’t.

She didn’t pick it up.

She turned around, far more clumsily than Branch, and hurried to the exit, barely remembering to pick up her lantern along the way. She didn’t know what would happen if she had to look at the remains of the invitation for more than a few seconds, but Poppy felt like it would involve her either bursting into tears or throwing up.

She knew, as she untied Fuzzbert and clambered onto his back, that one rejection shouldn’t have affected her like this. But it was just _shocking._ Poppy had never seen anyone reject her invitations like this. She had never seen anyone reject _anybody’s_ invitations like this.

The rest of the ride went by in a blur. Fuzzbert already knew the way back home, so Poppy was left to her own thoughts. She just kept running the scene through her mind, over and over again. The blank look on Branch’s face as he destroyed the paper, the sound of his foot mashing into the card, the feeling of her stomach twisting violently. Her knuckles were pale in the lanternlight as she gripped Fuzzbert’s reins.

The sharp cracking of Fuzzbert’s hooves against stone ceased, as he reached the stables. Poppy's body was on autopilot, as she undid his bridle and saddle, before leading him back to where he slept, absentmindedly scratching him behind the ears.

Fuzzbert seemed to be able to tell something was up, as he huffed gently, touching his muzzle to the exposed part of her neck. Poppy was silent.

She fetched a new pail of water, and some fresh hay for Fuzzbert. There was plenty of time, after all. Fuzzbert watched her from his airy stall, and she found herself talking to him.

“Was my card _that_ ugly?” the thought, ridiculous as it was, made her smile and almost brought a laugh to the surface. “I mean, a simple ‘no’ would have sufficed, he didn't have to actually destroy the card. Y'know?”

She turned to Fuzzbert, who lowered his head in what she hoped was agreement.

Poppy made sure to keep her voice a murmur so as not to wake the other horses. “Do you think I should stop trying to be his friend?” Fuzzbert cocked his back leg. “I'm not going to. It'll take more than stomping on an invitation to scare me off.” She willed her mind to stop replaying the harsh sound of paper ripping.

* * *

 

The music rang cheerily throughout the tavern, and the bodies around her bounced along to the rhythm. People sang along to the vocalists, who were standing near the bar with the musicians. Drunken, shouted conversations were scattered about.

Normally, Poppy would be among them. In fact, she would be the one bouncing the wildest, throwing her arms around people’s shoulders to swing them into a dance, singing, on the verge of yelling, as loud as she could along with the others, and telling stupid jokes to her friends.

But right now, she just felt tired. Crazy, right? Poppy, the girl who, even between her duties as a princess and her duties as a knight, usually never runs out of energy, feeling tired after a single rejection.

But try as she might, she couldn’t keep her mind off that conversation with Branch for more than a minute. It was like every time she started to enjoy herself, that snarled _No._ would echo in her ears, or she’d blink and see Branch’s foot crashing onto that dumb piece of paper again.

Poppy sighed and shook her head and took a huge gulp from her tankard, throwing her head back vigorously, as if that might return some of her spirit.

“Poppy!” she heard a voice call from near the centre of the dancefloor. She looked up to see Biggie, making his way over to her with a slightly concerned expression.

She grinned back at him, but could tell that it didn’t reach her eyes. Biggie offered her a large hand, and she took it glady, allowing him to pull her closer to where the band was playing. Biggie took Poppy by the hands, spinning both of them swiftly around in a circle.

“Are you alright?” Biggie asked softly, softly enough that Poppy could barely hear him over the merry tune of the viol. She nodded and smiled at him, a lot more genuine this time.

“I’m fine,” she called back, as he lifted one of her arms in the air and spun her around. “Just a bit tired.”

Biggie hummed, a little disbelievingly, but let it slide. “If you’re sure that you're okay…” He gave her a wide smile. “Remember you can talk to us if something’s wrong, right?”

It felt like she had just swallowed a stone, that was now sinking heavily in her stomach. She twitched her lips up into what was probably the most awkward smile possible. “Right.” she answered, not meeting Biggie’s eyes.

It wasn’t just about the crushed invitation anymore, Poppy reflected as she went to grab another cup of cider, it was that she couldn’t talk to any of her friends about how it made her feel. She had no one to vent to but her horse and her own thoughts.

Poppy worried that keeping this secret for too long might kill her.

* * *

 

Miles away, through the forest and down a cave tunnel, a boy stood in front of the destroyed mess that used to be Poppy’s card.

“I hate you,” Branch glared down at the card, but it remained where it was, smashed into the dirt. He sat down next to it, crossing his legs. He hunched over, staring at his clenched fists.

“Why did she think that there was any fucking chance at all that I would go?” he asked the empty air. He moved his gaze back to the invitation.

Something in his chest twisted. He wasn’t sure what it was, since he was pretty sure that at this point he didn’t have a heart. _Wow, Branch, could you get any more melodramatic?_

Without giving them permission to, his fingers drifted over to the card. He dug gently underneath it, before carefully prying it out of the soil. No easy feat, considering that at that point, the invitation was practically one with the ground.

Branch stared at the tattered, filthy piece of paper in his lap for a while. It was barely recognizable from the bright, colourful thing that Poppy had presented him just a few hours ago, the night before.

He scraped the dirt off some of the letters on the card. _PARTY!_ It read. _WIM’S INN, STARTING 12P.M.!_

Scrubbing away more, he could recognize his own face in a crowd of strangers’. It was smiling in a way he hadn’t seen on himself in what must have been years. Granted, he preferred not to look at his own face anyway, but that was irrelevant.

Branch glared at his own smiling face for a long time, and something about it just looked so _wrong._ The air in his lungs imploded in on itself, and for a second, all he saw was red.

He scratched furiously at the drawing of his own happy face, scrabbling at it until there was a hole in the card and the air returned to his lungs.

He sat there, gasping, staring at the invitation. Not only was there now a hole where his face used to be, but in his frenzy, he had ripped into other people’s faces as well. What a fucking metaphor, right?

Branch grabbed the card and shot to his feet. He stormed over to a cubbyhole, on the other side of the cavern from where he usually slept, and stuffed the card into it, before practically sprinting away. It felt like the card was watching, judging him, as stupid as he felt. Well, he’ll burn the card when he has the energy to.

He didn’t burn the card.

* * *

 

Poppy couldn't sleep. It was almost midnight, the party had ended a couple of hours ago. The keep was quiet, but for the creaking of the settling foundations and the gentle chirping of their caladrius.

Normally, she wouldn't notice the noises of the old keep, and found the twittering snores of the snow-white bird nestled in her window frame to be both adorable and comforting. But despite closing her eyes, lying still, and honestly being completely exhausted, sleep wouldn't come.

After what felt like hours of trying to sleep, Poppy sat up. She yanked off her sheets hurriedly, and crept as fast as she could to the other side of her bed chambers, where she kept her scrapbooking supplies.

She pulled out a piece of paper, some bottles of dye, and a couple of small, corked containers of a variety of crushed minerals, used for embellishment. Poppy dipped her favourite quill, a large peacock feather, into the inkhorn, and set to work, using only dim starlight and an almost-burnt out candle.

* * *

 

Poppy leaned her forehead against the wall of carvings that was the entrance to Branch’s cavern. She rubbed her fingers across the small piece of paper in her hands, feeling the little ridges and rough patches of glitter underneath her fingertips.

Making and looking at her own cards always made her feel better, although it was so pitch dark in the cave at that point that the best she could do was feel the card and picture it in her mind.

Slowly, tiredly, Poppy knelt down and pushed against the familiar carving on the bottom left. The wall groaned as it began to split open, as if it were being disturbed from its own slumber, but instead of waiting for it to open enough for her to slip through, Poppy just slotted her card through the gap in the wall, before whirling around on her heel and speed-walking back down the cave tunnel.

Poppy was going to talk to him again eventually. Preferably soon. But right now, she hadn't slept in roughly 24 hours, and was ready to just pass out.

The sun was starting to rise as she reached where Fuzzbert was tied up. She made a moment-long decision in her muddled brain, and decided to just stand there for a bit, leaning against her horse. It had been a while since she had watched the sunrise.

Branch clearly didn't like leaving his cavern, especially not during dark hours, Poppy reflected, so when was the last time he had just watched the sun drifting up into the sky like this? Had he ever had the chance to see the sky glow like that?

Sure, Branch had pushed her away and destroyed her card when she tried to invite him to a party. But that only steeled her determination. She was probably the last human he'd interacted with for a long, long time, if you didn't count the villagers he had, y'know, killed.

Maybe Poppy was the last human he'd interacted positively with since whoever that old woman in his carving was had… well, whatever had happened to her.

The once-dull puddles littering the soil around her reflected the sky, making them look like pools of gold. Poppy resolved to drag Branch out at some point to see them.

Because, sure, Branch certainly had some poor social skills. But the idea of just leaving him there, _alone,_ to stew for however long dragons lived for, was just… Poppy shuddered. She had never met anyone as obviously affection starved as Branch.

The very thought of how lonely he must be stirred something nauseous in her heart. Poppy wasn't going to pity him, but she couldn't help but want to wrap him up in blankets and bring him to live in the village, where there was plenty of love to go around.

Poppy shook her head, watching the rich gold of the sky fade into soft yellow and pink streaks. She stood up straight, before climbing as steadily as she could onto Fuzzbert’s back.

“Home.” was all she managed to slur, as sleep tugged on the edges of her vision. Hopefully the crisp morning wind could keep her awake long enough to get home and back into bed.

* * *

 

Branch startled awake suddenly, to the sound of the entrance to the cavern cracking open.

Well, either Poppy was coming back, which was unlikely, or he was about to be killed by an angry mob of villagers with pitchforks and torches. He almost felt like he deserved the latter, but Poppy didn't seem like the type to sell a person out over a crushed invitation.

Branch lifted himself to his feet, not yet looking at the entrance to the cavern. There wasn't a sound coming from it. That ruled out angry mob, but if it was Poppy, why wasn't she saying anything?

He turned to the entrance, to see it completely empty. What, had a fucking ghost opened the door to his cavern?

He approached the already closing entrance apprehensively, not taking his eyes off the hole to the cave tunnel. Until his foot stepped on something smooth, too smooth to be grass or dirt.

Branch glanced down, surprised. It was another card! Another one of Poppy's cards!

He looked away. Whatever the contents of that card were, they were either angry or forgiving. He didn't know which one would be worse.

Branch was tempted to just walk away. Ignore the surge of emotions that would inevitably come from opening that little, sparkly piece of paper. Go for the cowardly way out.

But still, he reached down and plucked the card out of the grass like some sort of bizarre, multi-coloured vegetable. Branch shook his head at the absurd thought. _That’s something Poppy would say._

He opened the card. A bolt of deja vu struck him suddenly, as the picture on the card was remarkably similar to the one he had crushed underfoot. The same strangers’ faces were scattered around the picture, dancing and playing lutes and the like. The most notable differences were that the newest picture was far more rushed and shaky looking than its predecessor, and Branch's smiling face was missing.

_WISH YOU WERE HERE!_ Read the letters across the top.

Branch snapped the card shut suddenly, blinking hard. How the fuck is she forgiving him so quickly? _Why_ the fuck is she forgiving him so quickly? He hadn't even offered up an apology! Though, thinking about it, Branch wasn't sure if he had the emotional capacity or the social skills to apologize.

He screwed his eyes shut. What gave Poppy the right to make him feel like this? What gave her the right to make him so mad at himself?

Branch stared blankly at the glittery piece of paper in his grasp, and waited for the urge to rip it up to appear. But it didn't. He didn't want to destroy this stupid card.

So, instead of forcing it to meet the same end that the previous one did, he hoisted himself up the wall, using the power gems sticking out of it as hand and footholds, and hid the card in one of the top cubbyholes.

Then, after clambering back down, he picked up the tattered, grimy piece of paper that was once an invitation to a party that was long over. Part of him growled to just burn it, or rip it up into so many pieces that nothing could save it. But there was another, softer voice, one that he hadn't listened to in years, that reminded him of the book on scrapbooking that was tucked away in one of the cubbyholes.

So he grabbed the book, plus a corked bottle of tree sap from a different cubbyhole, and brought both of them, plus the crushed invitation, to his favourite place under the tree in the centre of the cavern.

And Branch shakily started gluing the card back together.

* * *

 

The sun rose slowly through the pale sky, spilling morning light onto the awakening landscape. Birds awoke from their light slumber, perching on branches and filling the air with the sound of their shrill cries. A lone horse cantered through it all, carrying his barely-awake owner to the stables, where she relieved him of his saddle and bridle, before making her way back to her own home. Farmers got up to milk their cows and feed their chickens, and bakers started making their bread and pastries for the busy people soon to come buy it. A little while away, a boy finished clumsily repairing and cleaning an invitation, let out a tired breath, and held up the slightly bent card that he'd mended in a frenzy.

The day began again, the last traces of purple, orange, and gold disappeared from the blue sky, and one pink-haired princess collapsed into bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Waldgeist - German for 'woodland spirit', believed by ancient pagans to be the custodians of the forest. The Waldgeist spirit was believed to live in the forest and be the protector of those with 'pure spirit' who entered the forest. It is said to be good luck if you see one.
> 
> Caladrius - The Caladrius, according to Roman mythology, is a snow-white bird that lives in the king's house. It is said to be able to take the sickness into itself and then fly away, dispersing the sickness and healing both itself and the sick person.
> 
> I'm back!
> 
> This chapter ws very much character based, so there was little plot development. But!! Character development is important!!
> 
> This chapter is brought to you by: the Easter holidays. I'm working on more chapters rn
> 
> I told myself I would stick to Poppy's POV as much as possible and I didn't even make it 5 chapters. But God, writing Branch is so much fun...
> 
> I really didn't plan for Fuzzbert to have such a huge role in this story. I should change the title to "The Horse and the Knight, and occasionally a dragon too idk"
> 
> Hit me with a brick to the face on my tumblr, @brightwritesstuff !
> 
> Oh yeah, I also changed names!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first Trolls story posted on this site, I hope y'all like it. I based this a little bit off of the game Skyrim, but not too much. Credit for the idea (of Poppy being a knight and Branch being a shapeshifting dragon) goes to the anon who posted the prompt to bubb's tumblr (tisbubb). Have a lovely day guys!
> 
> ~FALFAL


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